Pensees Macabres (2014) Painting by Fred Whitson

As one who has also been actively involved with music professionally for quite some time now, I’ve always been fascinated with the raw emotions that art and music can evoke, and how closely the two forms have evolved together. To listen to a great work, or stroll through a gallery and take in the magnificence that hangs upon the wall, is to revel in the beauty that Humankind is capable of.

I’ve always been in interested in drawing and painting, spending many, many hours of my childhood in artistic pursuits (the least notable of which was carving a picture, along with my name, into a neighbour’s coffee table when I was about four years old! A less-than-spectacular start...). After a longer-than-wanted break through some tumultuous and complex years, I started to draw and paint again, with a more developed maturity and deeper appreciation than I possessed in my younger, Irish-Setter-mentality years.

My first loves in art, are portraiture and figurative subjects; the drama and grace that the human form is capable of intrigues me, and I like to keep my mind open to new techniques and interpretations that allow me to adequately convey what it is that I wish to communicate. One of the things I love so much about art in particular, is the endless diversity of interpretations, styles and perceptions that each artist brings to the paper or canvas; at Life Drawing, it’s so exciting to see that in a class of fifteen people, no two works are the same, in fact, they’re usually not even close to being similar, except in subject.

With almost thirty years of teaching experience, I run small classes for students of beginner-intermediate ability, giving them a solid grounding in the basics and helping them build on their skills while developing their own styles. I also like to make myself available for workshops, demonstrations and art judging commitments.

While learning from the examples of The Masters, there are several contemporary artists today whose work I admire, and whose techniques inspire me and have helped me to develop as an artist – David Jon Kassan, Christopher Pugliese, Steve Hanks, Serge Marshennikov ... the list is extensive and continually growing, as it should. Being basically self-taught, as I am, there is so much one can learn from others’ techniques, approaches and perspectives.

But isn’t that part of what makes the journey so interesting and so much fun?

• Nationality: AUSTRALIA
• Date of birth : 1963
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary Australian Artists